This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires

Fernando Gouvea · 10 Apr 2012, 15:34 · from 2012-April.txt.gz

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From: fqgouvea at colby.edu (Fernando Gouvea)
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:34:21 -0400
Subject: (urth) This Week in Google Alerts: Home Fires
In-Reply-To: <1334064915.84104.YahooMailClassic at web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1334064915.84104.YahooMailClassic at web161803.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4F8452FD.8090909 at colby.edu>

I'm with Marc on this one. Sure, there are elements of "right wing 
nightmare" to /Home Fires/. But political nightmares are all over SF, 
sometimes from the right, but much more often from the left. If that's 
going to stop you reading, there will be a lot not to read.

That said, I do understand the visceral reaction. I have such reactions 
to some left-wing fantasies/nightmares in SF, though my biggest problem 
is with what read as revenge fantasies or wish-fulfillment (my standard 
example is Bacigalupi's "Pump Six"). When that happens, I sometimes stop 
reading, but more often I grit my teeth and read on. It is good to be 
exposed to contrary opinions sometimes.

But the more significant observation, for me, is that in /Home Fires/ 
all of this is background. The main story doesn't strike me as 
particularly right-wing, though I can see someone making a case that 
it's deeply influenced by a Christian notion of what marriage should be.

Fernando

On 4/10/2012 9:35 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:
> Now people let their leanings interfere with objective criticism, especially if the viewpoint is unpopular.  As if Tristam Shandy wasn't anti-papist in its rhetoric.  Yet there are many Catholics who love it.  It would be a sin against art for a Catholic to dismiss Tristam Shandy's merit based on that obvious prejudice of the time and place of its composition.
>
> This reactive "everything must be sound and free from all stereotyping/common fears relating to a belief system so that no one may be offended" makes for some bland, boring, and uninteresting fiction.
>
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-- 
=============================================================
Fernando Q. Gouvea                http://www.colby.edu/~fqgouvea
Carter Professor of Mathematics
Colby College
5836 Mayflower Hill               Editor, MAA Reviews
Waterville, ME 04901              http://www.maa.org/maareviews

How to Argue Effectively, III: Use meaningless but
weighty-sounding words and phrases

Memorize this list:

  * Let me put it this way
  * In terms of
  * Vis-a-vis
  * Per se
  * As it were
  * Qua
  * So to speak

You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as
"Q.E.D.," "e.g.," and "i.e." These are all short for "I speak
Latin, and you do not."
   -- Dave Barry

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